The vulnerability in Windows Shell’s parsing of .LNK (shortcut) files presents some interesting and novel features in terms of its media lifecycle as well as its evolution from zero-day to patched vulnerability. For most of us, the vulnerability first came to light in the context of Win32/Stuxnet, malware that in itself presents some notable quirks.

The anti-malware industry sometimes sees more complicated problems than you might imagine, and they can’t all be fixed by tweaking detection algorithms or giving the marketing team a productivity bonus.